Light
by giant-sequoia
Summary: Sunrise on a new world.


AURORA_: see_ NEW EARTH. The goddess of dawn in Roman mythology, identified with Greek Eos. Some early records refer to New Earth by this name. The planet was first discovered in 8AE* and was selected as a potential new homeworld (thus, the "dawn" of the new age of humanity). It is the closest of seven to its sun, still known by the name Aurora, and the only one to have been discovered in a somewhat habitable condition. Aisha City was founded on this world in 11 AE...

-"_Guide to recent history" by __[text corrupted]_‡

* * *

_*2035 C.E. – Ed._

_‡An outsider's perspective: They say it's a "guide." I say it's "anthropocentric bullshit." This planet they call New Earth is eight billion years old. Life has existed here for the past six.  
_

* * *

_Shaundi, 10 AE._

The hovercraft glided forward in near-silence, producing only the faintest whirr. It ran on hydrogen and left not the slightest ripple in the water speeding by beneath it. Yet its on-board light seemed idiotically inadequate when Shaundi considered that Zin technology could illuminate entire planets from orbit.

"It's the most amazingly beautiful thing," Santiago assured her. "Things! Lots of things, there are _so_ many. I'm told there are tens of millions of them. Geological wonders, natural light sources, endless meandering fractal rivers…."

The boss was piloting the small hovercraft along a system of waterways, and meander they certainly did, but they were mostly flooded caves and ravines and they were dark. The craft's on-board light shone far enough to reveal that the rock face off the boat's port side extended upwards for at least several feet, but beyond that distance and in every other direction except down, it was too dark to see anything. If there were "natural light sources" about, they were keeping themselves turned off.

Santiago had still not told Shaundi anything about _where_ they were going, except that she wound find out "when they got there." According to Pierce, the boss had been interested in seeing the caves and valleys they had been traveling through to get "there", wherever it was. It had been two hours and they all looked more or less identical to Shaundi. She could not even tell if they were still in an enclosed space, because this planet was located on the edge of a galactic arm – from this hemisphere, its night sky was empty. The darkness above could have hidden a cavern ceiling or nothing at all.

Had Santiago said _tens of millions?_ At once?

"This planet is suitable for colonization. It has abundant farmland, clean rivers and lakes, forests, mountains, savannahs. And there are other continents with more fertile land, deserts, volcanos, more mountains, jungles, enormous oceans, island chains. Tides determined by the sun and four massive gas giants. Lit at night by auroras and the reflected light of those four giants. Just think of it! An entire world to explore and settle. Plenty of room to build. We can effect minimal displacement of indigenous creatures. And there are other things, more mysterious things-" He was talking faster now. "Artificial junk in orbit, engineered acoustic marvels, enormous astronomical clocks, ruined structures of various sorts, functioning aqueducts, ancient boats – much of it intact, all of it just waiting to be explored, and there're things-Shaundi-"

"Boss," Shaundi said in pieces whenever she could get a word in edgewise, "this is all very nice but I would really, _really_ appreciate it if you would tell me where we're going."

"There are things about this place that _only_ I and you and Pierce and the others get to know about, because I'm the Emperor of the Fucking Universe and I say so, thanks in large part to you."

"Yes, you're welcome, and right now I want for you to repay me for my help by _telling me_-"

"Just listen_,_ Shaundi, please. I have not told you what this place is called and denied you access to its history because-"

Shaundi had been staring at him and gesturing encouragingly, as if trying to yank the answer out of him before it escaped, but at that last her expression became incredulous. "Wait a minute. You _denied_ me access to this planet's history? Why?!"

"For a very good reason," Santiago said firmly. "You didn't even notice, did you? So it's fine."

"_What_ is the reason?"

They had come to a section of rock face with a large vertical notch carved into it. Santiago made a deft gesture over the controls and the craft spun ninety degrees to starboard. Suddenly, they were shooting forward through the darkness at a much higher velocity. Shaundi felt faintly vertiginous at the rapid acceleration, despite the lack of inertia. Now they seemed to be speeding out over open water, but with enormous pillars of rock regularly sweeping past on either side, indistinct in the gloom. She couldn't tell how high they were.

"Shaundi," Santiago said, "What I'm about to show you, I was shown myself just a few days ago. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before in my life."

He looked at her. "I want you to see it like I did and feel it like I felt it then, knowing nothing. Reminded of nothing. No preconceptions, completely new."

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Shaundi replied.

"It's better this way," Santiago said. "Trust me."

She did, but sometimes she wondered why.

Finally they came to an abrupt halt and began to rise at the same speed they had been traveling. They were next to one of the pillars, and Shaundi was startled when, as they kept climbing, so did the pillar, twisting and changing shape as it went. They were bigger than they had looked. By the time they reached its apex, the craft had to be more than half a mile above the water. What's more, the faintest hint of light had appeared on the horizon, and by its meager glow she could make out the shapes of other equally immense pillars. The ones they had passed lay behind them, and there were many more ahead and in either direction.

Shaundi realized she had felt no vertigo whatsoever.

Santiago reached above his head to swipe a control surface he hadn't touched yet. The entire craft, except for the bench they sat on, became transparent. Shaundi gasped. Santiago froze with his hand still raised to the control, staring out at the murky landscape. After a moment he recovered himself and sat down.

"So now what?" Shaundi said. "Don't get me wrong, boss, these are some pretty amazing rocks and all, but I sense they're not what you brought me out here to see."

"There's more, of course," Santiago said. "Now we have to be patient and wait for sunrise."

Shaundi took a breath and sat up a little straighter. Sunrise. Somehow, despite the hint of lightness far ahead, it hadn't occurred to her that she had not seen the real light of a sun poking over a real horizon with her own eyes in a long, long time. "How long?"

"Twenty-eight minutes."

So they waited.

Shaundi gazed out across the landscape, taking in the incredible sight as more of the sky lightened. The pillars were much larger than most human skyscrapers had once been. Theirs was bare, but most had vegetation atop them. And they went on for miles in every direction – not all the way to the horizon, but behind them and to either side there was no end in sight. Some were even larger than the one their craft had settled atop. Many were twisted and asymmetrical, like theirs, but others were roughly cylindrical or rectangular, almost smooth in comparison.

Gradually more of the sky bled from an inky black to a pale violet-blue. Shaundi noticed that faint glowing lines had appeared on their pillar. Branching patterns of luminescent material traced back and forth over the rugged surface of the rock – mineral deposits, perhaps?

The longer she looked, the more she saw. Light from other pillars was reaching them now. Their collective glow was faint, but all the more noticeable by the absence of starlight. They were surrounded on all sides by blocky, twisty spires engraved with veins of light.

Shaundi had to admit that it was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen, even before the Zin. She had almost forgotten that such stillness and peace was possible.

"Amazing," she said after a while.

Santiago glanced at her. "It hasn't even started yet."

"What?"

He turned to look at her. "We're waiting for sunrise, remember?" He nodded towards the horizon where the brightness was more apparent. "A few more minutes."

Shaundi pursed her lips, folded her arms and waited. _This had better be good._

Santiago held her gaze as if he had heard her think. He gave her a look that said without speech just as plainly: _You will understand when you see it happen._

She believed him.

A soft breeze stirred against her arm. Santiago had retracted the roof of the invisible hovercraft.

For the first time she heard the waves, crashing restlessly against the pillars far below.

The sun broke the horizon, and far away, much closer to that sliver of brilliance, the first pillars hit by its light exploded with more light. Shaundi and Santiago both gasped, she with astonished delight and he with the memory of powerful, genuine joy, remembered and reaffirmed.

The pillars had not exploded, they were still intact. She could see them beneath the luminescent cloud. It was as if the light had exploded _off_ the pillars. But how…?

She started to ask, but Santiago shook his head with a finger to his lips. He indicated his ear, and then their pillar. Shaundi was startled to see that many of the traceries of glowing rock seemed almost _loosened_ from the rock face. Every now and then the faint dun aura of the lights seemed to shiver in a wave across the whole pillar. She listened closely and realized the agitation came in response to the waves hitting the base of the pillar far below.

Santiago pointed to the horizon. The sun was rising fast – it was much more than a sliver now, though not yet half a disc. And though the glorious blue-pink tendrils of cloud and light that seemed to be unfurling across the sky were beautiful, more interesting still was the great shimmering curtain that had leapt into the air. More of it appeared whenever the sun's forward-creeping rays touched more pillars, and at the rate they advanced, the lights would reach them in moments.

Shaundi looked back and forth between the lights dancing on the rock and the lights dancing in the sky, whatever they were, eager to drink in the sight of both but having to divide her attention.

The light fell across them and the surrounding rock burst with life. Both Santiago and Shaundi were on their feet with it, rejoicing aloud. Tiny, segmented, rock-like creatures leapt into the air, aglow with bioluminescence, their jewel-bright wings so small and beating so fast that they presented only a glittering blur in the air. There were a vast number of them, many more than she could count

_–I'm told there are tens of millions of them–_

and they were almost indistinguishable from one another, but each one was unique. Some were bright pebbles, or bits of sharp gravel, or thumbnail-sized chunks of other kinds of sparkling rock or gemstone. They were segmented and radial and modular and irregular. Some were tiny gears, cubes, prisms, or spheres, metallic and ceramic and rocky and crystalline.

But all of them they had wings; and though none of them looked like anything she knew, wings they clearly were, and many appeared to be biological.

"What… are they?" Shaundi whispered, overcome with awe. When she glanced at Santiago, it was just as amazing a sight. He looked more vital than she had ever known him to be. His face, his eyes, his very _skin_ were aglow. And he was delighted; he was reveling in it.

Santiago lifted his hand, and a swarm of the flying things came to him as if pulled. They swarmed around both humans, hovering before one, then the other, moving back and forth and flitting about in patterns only they understood. Shaundi was astounded once more when she saw that most of the creatures had not only wings, but legs – and that their legs were as dizzyingly diverse as their wings. Some were segmented, some long and straight, others jointed in zig-zagging patterns or bent into strange shapes. Some had many and some had few; some had countless tiny wavering legs and others had two large fused antennae-like structures. All were inorganic, but no two were exactly alike.

"Are they robots?" Shaundi murmured, overwhelmed. "Rocks? Or bugs?"

"Yes," Santiago breathed in response. She looked at him, vexed, wanting a specific answer, but he gave her none. Instead, he showed her such a huge grin that in the end she couldn't not smile back. His joy was infectious.

They watched the lights for a long time, until the sun was well above the horizon. The creatures dispersed over time, but slowly, and their numbers seemed limitless. A cloud of them ever remained, constantly replenished, curiously circling Santiago and Shaundi. When she held out her hand, one or two at a time always landed to touch her and explore her palm, questing feet leaving behind ever-changing patterns of faint pinpricks, sniffing out new chemicals and taste-scents.

"What _is_ this?" she asked him absent-mindedly at one point, more absorbed in the experience than consciously interested in an answer.

"Life," he replied in a long exhalation. "I brought you here to help me name this place."

She said nothing for a while, thinking deeply.

"It's like nothing I've ever seen before," he said. "That's why I want a name that's completely new."

A long moment passed in silence. She knew, finally, the thing he had been getting at, the terrible power he had come to this place to flee from – so far from everything they'd known – the thing he could never forget as long as he lived, though it had happened years in the past. She didn't want him to say it.

"Something that fits this place," he went on. "Something that reminds me of nothing from-"

"Stop," she said. He nodded and fell silent. They watched.

* * *

The base camp was just a few miles inland from the coast.

"So we didn't have to go through the caves to get to the expanse of pillars," Shaundi stated.

"No."

"Then why did we bother?" Shaundi finally wondered aloud. "Why did you even want to see all those fucking caves? What the hell was so interesting about the same thing over and over again?"

"What are you, nuts? I didn't give a damn about the caves. I was there for the lights. Pierce told me _you_ wanted to go spelunking, fuck knows why, but you've been doing some really good work lately and I thought you deserved a-"

"I never fucking said that! Caves are boring as shit! Pierce told me _you_ wanted to see them."

A long, low sigh, almost a growl.

"Ohhhh…."

"Oh."

"Oh, Pierce. I'm gonna…."

"Get in line."‡

* * *

"No. Absolutely not."

"But it's a great name. The symbolic-"

"Shaundi, I said _no_."

"Why not?"

"Shaundi, you will _not_ name this planet Aurora. I forbid it. I'm the boss and I'm the Emperor of the Fucking Universe and what I say, you will not question."

"Why are you being such a prick about this?"

An exasperated huff. "Aurora has connotations from the homeworld I don't want. What's so fucking mysterious about that? If the people decide that they absolutely must have the same word in the name, I will tolerate New Earth. Nothing more and nothing less. I would prefer we call this place a completely new word..."

Shaundi rolled her eyes as he rambled on. She liked the name. She would refer to the planet however the fuck she wanted.

"Besides, don't you read Asimov?" Santiago went on. "Don't you know how shit like this goes? We call this place something stupid and pretentious like Aurora, we'll end up calcifying around robots and eventually die static and forgotten. In twenty thousand years this world will be empty except for feral dogs."

"Now you're just making shit up."

* * *

‡_An outsider's perspective: Shaundi received a message, apparently from Pierce, saying that Santiago wanted to take the long route to "see the caves" but was unwilling to ask her to go with him. Santiago received a similar message but with Shaundi's name in place of his own. Pierce did not attend, nor did he even know about the expedition, believing the message he received claiming Shaundi wanted some "alone time" with the boss. In truth Zinjai sent the messages, and laughed about it later with malice in his heart._

_I am the editor here now. -Rook_


End file.
